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tv   United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz at the Bipartisan Policy Center  CSPAN  August 16, 2019 4:32pm-5:23pm EDT

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next, united airline ceo oscar munoz discusses his leadership role, and how united views its role on a global scale. alsoenus -- munoz discusses a heart transplant. >> welcome, everyone. the meaning of leadership, people have different interpretations. the sense that there is not enough of it is widely shared among those of us in washington. the mission for this series is to call on leaders from national thisocal politics, as leaders, folks in education, the
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arts, advocates, to understand the circumstances and characteristics that enable some people to overcome real differences and lead. our imagination at the bipartisan policy center is not 200 yearscountry was of cohesion. but we have always had people who understood how to overcome those differences. so to reflect on this question about what does enable us to overcome the inherent distinctions in any kind of free society, we are delighted today to be joined by oscar munoz. oscar was appointed president and ceo of united airlines in september 2015. he is a true american success story. growing up with eight siblings in california, first member of his family to go to college, he has had a number of rather remarkable leadership roles with at&t, coca-cola, pepsi co., prior to joining united as the president and ceo of the csx
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corporation, which moves a lot of heavy stuff around the country. this discussion is going to be a lot about oscar's focus on people. as a prepared for this discussion, the consistency with which the descriptions of your leadership has been just kind of anchored in both your employees and your passengers has really kind of shown through. and i think i am particularly interested in a field that is technologically complex, , highically capricious stress -- it is scary flying. the fact that we do not get scared flying is kind of remarkable. we have essentially taken everything that is right and wrong in american society and him get into these aluminum tubes and hurled it around the world. it's a pretty remarkable thing that we do. the fact that you've been able to at that moment to really change the culture of the company while achieving more
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than a 50% increase in stock price sounds pretty cool. and so we're going try to explore that a little bit. i should disclose the introduction by acknowledging how pleased we are to be able to have this series in the honor of the extraordinary service about -- service of bob and elizabeth dole. many of you know bob dole is one of four founders. again, they are proud partisans. these are not folks who go lightly anywhere they travel. but they are people who in their careers understood how to overcome real adversity, and how to build the kind of trust that is necessary to move the country forward. and so, this is the one-year anniversary. we launched this series on bob dole's 95th birthday. and it's been a really great experience for us as an organization. and we are dedicated. i think we're going to have our 12th event this thursday. we're going to have five female freshman members of congress to come join us and share their experiences.
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let's jump right in. i think there is a cliche in leadership about whether leaders are made or born. my conclusion to the answer is yes. but i guess my question is --if we had your eighth grade teacher here and we said so who is oscar -- so here is oscar, ceo of united airlines, what they say, "of course, oscar." tennyson, what's the famous quote, i'm the sum of all the parts i met? >> she would be honored. when did you start to find yourself in leadership roles? oscar: first if i could -- thank you very having me. the concept of bipartisan bridging the gap, communicating, conversing. having different points of views, but actually having meaningful debate and discourse is just something that it feels
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like we've lost. and in a world that has become increasingly divided, i would like to say we choose a world that is united. [laughter] oscar: sorry. jason: i'm done. oscar: even more of an honor, the fact that it is the dole leadership -- all of us remember senator donnelly standing up at the funeral of mccain, one of the most poignant, touching moments. it really encapsulates the world that used to be in politics. that is always a meaningful thing. aen this came up, it was great possibility. jason: we think the members of congress by and large are very good people with very bad incentives. do andg out what we can talking about leadership is simply part of that process. , for aing on a life friendly conversation, is not their challenge. can you think -- have there been moments in your life when you
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yourback and think of philosophy of leadership? do you look back to particular people are instances that have affected you? oscar: i would go back to the fact that who you are is a product of your environment growing up. along the way, the people you be in your life and influence -- certainly, parents. in my world, there has always been people you hold up as exemplary. like i had a grandmother who i always get emotional when i talk about her. she lived until she was 96 years old, worked her entire life, was a made in a hotel for a long period of time, and worked well into her 80's, with debilitating source arthritis. one thing about her which i will always remember -- not ever a single bad word about anyone or anything. she went to work every day. promise,is proof not
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giving credence to her. because when she retired -- she was again a made at a hotel. the fact that not only her coworkers showed up, but management and even senior management from a different city showed up at her retirement just to meet example five the kind of person she was, and the meaningful impact she had on them. so you aspire to be the same kind of person. it is those kind of things. and i could tell you 20 other stories about people who have caught me along the way. my high school counselor, who ,aught me in a hallway one day not quite when class was out, so i thought i was in trouble. and we had just taken the sats, the preliminary sats. she stopped me and asked where i was thinking of going to college. again, i grew up in a relatively
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-- not low income households, .ut blue-collar further education was not part of the conversation. my answer was at the time, "what's a college?" she helped me through the process that got me to go to school. again, the environment and the environment that i grew up in, my latino roots, was not yet a permanent thing. one of my writing missions in life is that i don't want to be the exception to everything. i want to be the expectation. we should have people of all colors and races in authority. we should question why aren't you in that position. those are the kinds of things that drive me. it has always been another human being around me somewhere that has influenced the conversation. i give credit to them. i call that my duty to care. a lot of things i do personally in philanthropy and industry within our company is to try to
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tell people that it is important to care for others. of course, i work in a world were caring for you, our wonderful customers in this room, is really meaningful to us. jason: we are going to get there. oscar: we had a long preamble. jason: representative, thank you for joining us, and secretary. we have got some seats up front. i know you have got to run, so you hang out by the -- oscar: is that bill? jason: bill is by the bar. just a private guy. oscar: i am sorry. he was wonderful at a time in my was pretty dark. that was meaningful support. it was a wonderful experience. jason: before we go more into the company, and i want to talk about that -- it is a bit of a cliche, but really this is the american dream story. this is the story we all imagine this country is about.
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the reality is that it really is not so much. if you look at the recent data, social mobility is at a lower point now than it has been in generations. the chances of moving from the bottom fifth of our economic stratus to the top fifth is about 7.5%. it does not happen a lot. productivity has almost doubled since 1980. real wages have stayed relatively flat. i want to talk to you as a ceo in general, not even of just united. you had -- i have got a good quote from your wonderful staff that you want united to be a company that is both profitable and principled, where employees not only make a living, but make a wonderful life for themselves and their families. how are you helping people? is that an obligation of a ceo? oscar: it is a complete and total obligation. it is so easy in this day and to give that responsibility
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to others -- not my job. my job is to make money for my investors. but it is an obligation. social views, philosophical concerns -- we sit in my world over 100,000 people worldwide. connecton in life is to people to the things that matter most. the second part is unite the world. that is not a phrase by me up. and that gives me a lot of clarity and support and confidence about having an obligation to do all the right things. we have taken a very strong stance on sustainability, on diversity. a more diverse set of board members or leadership in this industry than you have a united. more importantly, they are incredibly valued, hyper or meet individuals, all chosen on merit and meritocracy. i have lived my entire life
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under the disguise of you have to work harder, oscar, because you are different than your people, so i did. when i counsel folks, whether it is any diverse face -- the fact of life is, we do have to work harder, plain and simple. and work harder we shall. increasingly, more and more people are getting impositions me, thatot look like look like i guess the standard ceo, who are seeing the value of diversity making a difference. the obligation is to continue to not only use the words, but more importantly, back to this proof and promise -- to put people in decisions that are meaningful. you watch them grow, and we have 50% -- i think we are close to 90% stock appreciation. it makes a difference when you have success in this concept of profitable but principled. it is a serious obligation.
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jason: i have the pleasure of talking to a lot of ceo's. there is the question of shareholders versus stakeholders. is the obligation to maximize profit? or is it my community and my country? people basically say, i am with you. an aggressivet is partner. the company, over i think one of the first signals that you were thinking about it differently was executing a lot of those labor agreements that had been open-ended for a while. so just talk about why that instinct, but also you got a clean sheet response from wall cringey- you got a response from wall street up front. how do you think about it? oscar: this is where i think people mistake the emotion and drive, the purity of our
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principle, as being too touchy-feely. oscar will treat people well and that is all we are going to do. from almost day one, we had a native, structured, strategic plan of attack of what we needed to accomplish to get to where we are today. you have got to have that plan. that takes care of all your constituents. not only are customers, but wall street. sometimes, not everyone understands what you are doing. there is no good deed that goes unpunished, certainly. having the plan -- we all hear it. in order to take care of your customers, you have to take care of your people first. books have been written about that. everybody says the words. who does it? our team in the office says there is a problem in our country. people are disenfranchised, disengaged. we need to regain the trust of our employees. one of the mechanical things about regaining the trust was taking care of at one point in contract year-long
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disputes with our flight appearances -- our flight attendants. who touches you more as a customer? your flight attendant. we had not treated them like a meaningful, valued member of the family. you have to fix those things. there is a cost to it. fast-forward to where we are today. here is the return. we have a better customer experience. we have better profitability. we are able to invest in things like sustainability, talk about -- likeike the city diversity. you have to have a plan. we laid out a plan last year, growth strategy. you talk about wall street going a little crazy -- they went crazy. we put together a team at united that knows exactly what it is doing. we vetted that plan for months on end, so when we launched it, we had every expectation that it was going to do exactly what
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it has been doing. nobody else knew. folks will get worried. but you have to have this conviction about everything that you're doing with a fairly strong laid out plan. so it's not just about hoping it's going to well. we worked very hard to work to get to those things. jason talk a little bit how : you have watched as a ceo for many years, and been in the suites of- the c companies. it seems to me that the role and the expectation of c.e.o. is changing quite dramatically. the expectation that you are a public figure, that you have views on policy issues. as you have been in the last -- in these roles over the last , do you think that is a fair assertion? do you feel like the public expectations of year old is different than it would in a decade ago? oscar: you get accountability, transparency that have all increased heavily. you know, we all grew up in a different world. being a ceo in the old days, you look back fondly on those times. it is different today, but i
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-- the time has evolved. i don't look at it askance. i just look at it as the new reality, and an important one. i think most of the folks who sit in our roles today have embraced it as well. it is the right thing to do for what we have developed as a social community here in the u.s. jason: one of the places where we have seen a change is the expectation that companies are public policy agents. you are not just about air travel. i guess peter drucker said management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things. you and delta took a pretty strong position after the parkland shootings, which everything about that was controversial. but, you know, why? you are an airline. what role did you have in that public policy issue?
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oscar: so the facts behind it all are very simple. one of our pilots lost his daughter in that shooting. i mean, that puts a whole different aspect on anything you are talking about. i actually flew down to miami to see them a few days afterward. we had our annual meeting the following week. as the stance we took our big convention -- we were offering discounts like we do to any large crew. i think we felt this was not the appropriate thing to do given the circumstances that just happened, so as an industry to a degree we banded together. , i was the first one on the speak, to be asks the question, because the nra of course took a strong stance on that, accusing me of political bias. i don't have a political view. i love a family member. plain and simple. so it did become personal. the media picks it up saying munoz said it was a personal decision to stop the nra discount, which wasn't the full context of it. but it is on those kinds of
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issues where you have to do the right thing. we have parkland. we have the separation of children. remember, my vision is unite the world. what part of unite the world allows separation of children from their families, regardless of the circumstances? so we took a strong stance. in fact, we went a step further. we ended up flying people to actually reconnect people that have been separated. so those are the kind of things that i think are important. if you look at the broad nature of our united family and ask about these decisions, they are fully supportive. they gave me that clarity, that conviction, and that confidence when they came up with the term that says we unite the world. jason: let's talk a little bit about the world and an issue you have been very focused on, environment and climate change. united made a commitment to reduce emissions by 50% by 2050, which is a tough thing to do if you are fighting gravity, right? i mean, you know --
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oscar: gravity being 4.5 billion gallons of jet fuel year. jason: yeah, so talk a little bit about your thinking. as an industry, the airlines have not been a leading voice in the climate debate. i think rationally because it just does not see a lot of options. electric planes seem unlikely for the near future. why were you motivated to do that and how do you think about the ability to achieve a pretty bold commitment? oscar: back to the issue of reality, you have to -- -- and i heard this and this is not a political support or anything, but a former vice president who is very involved in the area of sustainability, i heard him say these words. jason: dick cheney? oscar [laughter] :oscar: different environmental issues. the concept was do you believe climate change is real? you have to ask yourself the question. there is much debate in facts, but do you believe? do you see the facts? and if you do or don't, that's
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the first question. the second is can you do something about it? and all of us can do something about it, because the third question is the most important, will you do something about it? as we faced that question as a united family, we generally felt the facts are increasingly more obvious that climate change is affecting different parts of the world. can you do something about it? yeah, but it's going to be expensive, difficult, hard, take a lot of time. we will have to make all these changes. so then the question came, will you do something about it? again this is who the united , family is. people said, we will do something about it. so we started with easy with straws and developed the concept of biofuel. so we have taken a pretty big investment, the largest investment in waste-to-energy manufacturers. we are exploring all capabilities. more importantly, us leading the industry from the planet perspective, we have more traction.
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we have people -- i believe delta has come out recently with a similar pledge. we are working with the international association of airlines. and we are working that. and just as we are beginning to do that, this concept of esg is all of a sudden beginning to rear its head. it's wonderful to be ahead of that with known focus, no lines -- known lines in the sand. it's an important topic for us. so we can only bury our heads so long. again, we have to be mindful of 4.5 billion gallons of jet fuel that i burn every year. i mean, i know everybody appreciates it and we like to get to our places, but we have to do something and move forward. that is what we have been doing. jason: you don't think the green new deal will be a giant boon for amtrak? oscar: no comment. jason: had to get that one out. oscar: they will be on later this week.
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ask this question then. jason: we will turn to this question of people. you have 90,000 or so employees, 160 million passengers, and you made a strong point, you thought the ethos of the company and the airlines was out of whack. that the focus on safety and efficiency had led to kind of a protocol-driven culture that had taken some of the humanity out of the process. you came up with these core four principles, the second being caring. this has clearly been kind of a central thesis. but talk a little more about when you joined the company. what were you perceiving that had been lost? and what have you been trying to do to bring it back? oscar: i think it's a big operation. u.s. customers, if you think about your last flight or next flight, you think about one thing. is it going to leave on time and get where i want? that reliability is very important.
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we don't, to your earlier point, until recently, think a lot about safety, because we expect that out of the training, out of the safety, out of the regimen, out of the great regulatory oversight we have with regards to that. and so over time when you run a really big operation like we do, we can't have anarchy and chaos. we have to have order and process. you can't jump up and go to the airport and go to whatever line and everybody says just get on the airplane anytime you want. i think southwest tries to do that. [laughter] oscar: but we don't have quite that luxury. so you need policies and procedures to ensure, again, your safety and security. that is why we do that. but once we have taken care of the issues of your safety and security, then we have to learn to put the customer at the center of everything we do. how do you feel about flying? how do we take into account the things you want to do? i know you want to fly with a six-foot peacock, but the answer is going to be no.
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but we can't allow -- we can allow other things. jason: this is not a hypothetical. someone brought in emotional support peacock on one of her -- oscar: we stopped that well ahead of the gate. jason: i'm told someone brought in emotional support dog for their emotional support monkey. oscar yes. : [laughter] oscar: it's only unclear if it was for the monkey for the dog or vice versa. you can't make this up. and so, because as you think about the logistical things that have to happen to put a flight in the air, we have a lot of rules. right? if you sit outside and watch the gate as the plane is being boarded, you were here people come up with, hey, can i sit next to my friend? can i bring this 30-pound bag? it's my third back. our answer is and has to be to a certain degree, no, not because we don't want you to but because somebody is already sitting next to your friend. in order to move you, you know, there is all those practical
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things, but over the course of time we lost that caring feeling. where it is like, how do we tell explain to them in a meaningful, personal way they can't do that but at the same , time create an environment where we don't always have to say no? we are building digital tools in all these different things, but the heart of the matter of the interaction you have with us is with another human being, and how they treat you and react to your question, how they answer your question is a really important part. and that comes from the core. it has to be. and so getting our folks this cour four principles of always safe first, and the other two are dependable and efficient -- which you would excite the -- you would expect a big company to say. but the second most important thing is caring. so when you see a mother of three running down the terminal to make a connection and it is the last flight of the day, but your policy, our rules, my procedure says 5:30 and the
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gates are closed and she is close by, but i will get in trouble if i don't close it at 5:30. that is when care comes in. it's like, you know what? i am a mother of two or whatever. i am going to just wait a little bit. and allowing that in a culture that has been so fixated on rules and procedures, that is why we put that into place. and it took us -- it has taken us to a continuous point a constant affirmation and education an explanation of what it is. we have become so entrenched in policies and procedures that people wanted to know how many minutes, in that example, can i care for? right? is it two minutes, six minutes? we build technology, big data ai kind of thing. we know where the aircraft are going. we know the wind pattern. so we know how long a plane can delay and still make the further connections.
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in a plane of 160 people, most are on board. the family of three is a small number compared to the rest. so our priorities are less the mama ges get to its points on time, but if we have room, let's wait for the plane. that hurts us because our on-time metrics will decline. and you will read from the press that airline service degrades. what we have been doing in two cities today, we have saved 25,000 connections. that may not be a lot in the world, but if you're one of those 25,000 people people, you care a lot, because it made you feel good. somebody was waiting for me. we are averaging 4.5 minute delays, and we are always getting there on time. we know when we can fly and it helps you as a customer and that's right thing to do. the metrics -- we have to educate the world that the metric alone does not tell the whole story because connections do matter.
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>> two anecdotes. i have a seared memory of seeing a door close with two kids and two strollers. it was not a united flight. i will not mention who it was, but we have not flown on them since. i actually just was on a flight last week from denver to d.c. with my 13-year-old and 11-year-old. and she generously shared her ear pads with him so he could listen to the same video. he managed to drop it in that invisible depth between seats. >> we don't make money on the things we find. misconceptionmmon . >> it's creating a generational fissure between my children. and one of her flight attendants saw this happen and she took the seat apart and managed to do it in a way that my daughter was not humiliated. it was a remarkable thing, in my children still love each other. [laughter] >> you told me the story earlier
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and i will reiterate what i said then. that flight attendant's decision to assist in that manner did not come from a digital tool, an investment or a class we sent them to. that came from a pure, unadulterated personal desire to care for someone else. allowing people to be that, to care for others, is the meaningful part of our core four. just give people the freedom to p about someone else. it's a meaningful thing and it's exciting to see and hear those stories. you'd be amazed how many heroic stories -- my friends are here and we hear this all the time. we are trying to publicize how important the industry is and how much good we do for so many people. that story times 1000 every day it happens. but we don't hear about any of those things. you hear about the ants or whatever it is. >> i clicked the four stars.
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we will open up to questions in a minute. this is the kind of question on leadership in crisis. i know you get asked this a lot. you had a heart attack shortly after becoming the ceo. and as the story goes, you had to have a heart transplant. you had a meeting with your staff and said i will be out for a few hours, at which point you went and had a heart transplant. obviously this is a huge -- i don't mean to make light of this incredible experience, but i'm interested in it as it relates back to her imagination of leadership. one of the notions of leadership is this presumption of invincibility. a lot of politicians and ceos like to create this aura of being above it all. your mortality was put in front of you in a dramatic way.
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has that affected your leadership? has it affected your approach to your job? >> i think in my case, there is an effect -- there has to be when you go through something like that, but i am pretty much the same person i was before. again, this sum of all parts i talked about at the opening continues to drive me, but it has helped me understand not just mortality but the importance of, as an example, not invincibility, what is a good word for it? we will all face obstacles, all going to face issues. some see so death-defying and in disasters that are life goes topsy-turvy. what is the right level of support from family and loved ones, the right mindset about these things? during that whole health crisis, i never once thought anything bad was going to happen to me.
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that is not invincibility. that comes from a lot of people's hearts and minds. my family was amazing. the quick story is i was only on the job for 37 days before i got stricken with a pretty massive heart attack that would have killed most people. in the level of support from the united family was immense. again, 37 days, but the amount of mail and gifts and flowers that came in from that community for so many months. my children opened bags of mail and read it in the morning to me. that, for me, coming back from that event was never a conversation and a question, but it does help me help other people. i go to a lot of hospitals and i speak to a lot of patients. it's important for them to see someone. running around and doing what i do, your life does not have to be narrowed down to something
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just because you have a transplant. it's an amazing process. i will tell you all that the psa i always give to folks is really simple. there are so many, many, many symptoms of heart attacks. the difference between men and women are immense. but the advice i got from someone -- by the way, i used to run marathons and triathlons. i was a vegan when i got mine. so, your lifestyle -- i don't recommend any of those things. [laughter] >> but one of my mates who happens to be a cardiologist always says some of the youngest and fittest people have symptoms they never sort of manage. if you ever feel anything weird or strange, and we know what that is, immediately call for help or assistance. and he said that, which makes it obvious. but he said something that was stuck with me.
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he said, when you call 911, immediately tell them where you are, ok? that makes sense. because you may not make it past the phone call. i remember exactly where we were when he said it. this was two years before my event. and so one morning a chicago by myself in my apartment i worked out and i felt something weird. my legs gave out. his words came rushing back to me. he said get to the phone, call 911, and tell them where you are. i'm on the 50th floor of a high-rise in a big city. most of the deaths occur when people say i will jump in the shower. i will feel better. just lay down. i told this story so many times. i constantly tell it because we have received literally thousands of notes have come back from people who have heard this story and responded. i told that to my dad, my brother. i've had people stop me at
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airports in tears telling me how meaningful that was because just like it help me to make the decision to call 911, i tell it to you. >> it must give you some perspective on the crisis if you bring back tomato juice or not. you have thought about airlines a little bit. i've put over there, if you want one, but secretary glickman? let us know who you are, please. >> complement and a question. there is no question your service has materially improved in the last couple of years. and that is not just because i want my global services renewed. in truth, there is a remarkable difference in how people are treated on an airplane. all the carriers, but i fly united more than anything else. i would like you to comment on the elephant in the room, the 737 max 8 and how you as an airline responded to that when you were so reliant on getting these new airplanes and that
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they were certified by the faa, and how you have dealt with that particular crisis. because it has probably been the most serious crisis affecting the airline industry in many years. >> yeah, this is where things like the core four and the general industry trend is towards flight safety in particular. there is no disagreement on how important that is. any airline, certainly in the united states, it's immediately dealt with. once we had -- i think the decision process was do we have facts and data that support grounding. that's important because to return an aircraft to flight you have to use the same facts and data. there was a lot of emotional issues around the world. so-and-so did it so you should do it as well. i think the faa did the right thing, as we have always done. we have the best safety record in the world with the faa. they were doing their analysis. once we learned the right facts
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and data to do this, we have had that airplane grounded in five minutes. that is how we dealt with it. how do we deal with that going forward, this aircraft will a flight at the right time at the right level of support from not just the u.s., the u.s. airlines, but around the world, so everybody feels comfortable. it's important for people to feel comfortable. yes, we take a hit. remember, profitable but principled. there is no bigger principal that you would have us have other than your personal safety. >> this is sort of a bipartisan issue that started with obama and goes on with president trump now regarding both airlines -- linesirlines -- gulf air
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airlines flying into the u.s. i just flew to jfk on emirates. qatar emirates has a controlling stake in air italy. it has air italia for now. how big of a problem is that for you? also, the second part of the question is, do you think we should get rid of our forward ownership barriers and allow cross-border mergers? >> all my peeps are like, don't go there. [laughter] >> i think the ongoing debate with the qatari and the emirates have been chronicled well. we don't mind the competitive playing field. when it is so and even with -- uneven with subsidies, that is what we have in working with. i think the number was $50 billion over a decade those airlines have been subsidized. people disagree with the number. and i cut it in half. it's still a hell of an amount of subsidization. there is a reason no u.s. carrier fly to gulf carriers.
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it's impossible from a financial perspective. we will continue to have those conversations. surrogates, we think that is cheating. we have been very prominent in those debates and conversations. that conversation will happen again. the qatari government was here last night -- did not get an invite to that dinner, but nevertheless. with regards to the broader issue of ownership, that's an issue for governments to deal with. we have our views certainly. but fair and balanced competition and open access is something we all actually support. what else? >> hello. my name is maria. i've come from spain. sorry for my accent. thank you. first of all, i would like to
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thank you for the amazing conversation. and i would like to ask you, as you come from a company that i love -- i'm working at the coca-cola company for 23 years. you work now in a company that i also love, because it brings me to my country directly. i have to jump when i go to spain, but now i can go next week with united to spain. the question is what did you learn from coca-cola to bring it to the airlines? >> thank you. that's a great sort of -- one of the things i missed after i left coke and did a couple of other jobs is that direct consumer branding capability. what i envision for our united, and more difficult issue, is the same emotion. you see her smile. when you think of coca-cola, you get all warm and gushy about it. we all remember the old ads, a coke and a smile and those
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things. that's the kind of feeling we want to bring to your flying experience with united. those of the things i learned. how important are consumer is, how important our brand is. we did not become the family skies overnight. we have learned that over the last couple of decades. to live up to that, that's the standard, that's the drive we are working to regain, so thank you. >> one or two more questions. >> i'm going to ask one on behalf of congressman crowley. she is leading one of our infrastructure efforts. on the question of nexgen technology in the partnership between the government and the private sector. you know, i know it is probably apocryphal, but the assertion there is more navigational capacity on my iphone than some airplanes is probably a little
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bit of an exaggeration, but how can we not figure this one out? what is it going to take to bring modern navigational capacity to the air traffic control system? >> everybody faces this dilemma in the city about how we move things forward that have meaningful improvement and meaningful advancement to our way of life. air traffic control in our world is so outdated and so obsolete in some degrees. it is still safe, but we have to slow everything down. we talk about sustainability. you know, the big manufacturers are building aircraft that are the equivalent of ferraris, but then the air traffic control is the equivalent of making them run around on gravel roads. you take away all the joy. fuel savings and fuel efficiency in those big aircraft, you have to slow them down and you burn all that fuel. i think would happen before, and
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this is probably the solution, is that it has become politicized. we started using the word "privatization." gen is the next generation of air traffic control that allows it self with 65 other countries that use it, we are behind the 65 other countries just to put it in perspective. the word is privatization. we tried so hard to fight to say that should not be the word. the objective should be modernization. that is what we are trying to accomplish. how best to we accomplish that as a nation with support of both sides of the aisle? and that is where we failed. it became too politicized. it became a point of debacle when it went across party lines. i said to certain leaders, great, you won. now what? we still have the problem. so we have to just keep at this. >> it is on our to do list here
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at the policy center as well. >> it's your show, i forgot. >> michelle? do you have another question? >> i run the infrastructure project here. thank you for your comments about public-private partnerships. i have been waging a battle for a couple of years and now. more specific to the d.c. area, we are getting a metro out to the dulles airport. i understand you are doing a lot to enhance the airport and potentially make it a northeast hub -- not northeast, but midatlantic help? can you tell us about what you doing it dulles? >> tel aviv. it is a great way of explaining what we are doing, connecting traffic for our community to come into that hub and fly internationally.
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it is improving to the point where it is one of our most profitable hubs. we have grown significantly, i think 7% or 8% the last couple of years. we are doing it that airport what you need is to do, what you want us to do. give me places to go and aircraft i want to fly. our business is simple. unfortunately the aircraft is very expensive. we want to fly to many places immediately. we have introduced a lot of differences. you will see more of that and tel aviv is a perfect example of a flight that matters to a lot of people in this community. the infrastructure at these airports -- i won't use the term i want -- is not up to par. it is mature, certainly, or nonexistent. all of us know what dulles is about. everyone is trying to do a nice job, but we have a train that goes nowhere. we have the same rental facilities that were generated 20 or 30 years ago that are still there. we never connected them to anything.
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all of that has to be done. unfortunately that requires a lot of money, a lot of money that is local. infrastructure is a big thing for our country. and then we have the broader debate about infrastructure for our country, roads and bridges and such. i don't support that the thing we have to fix is airports. we have to fix all infrastructure. it comes back to public-private partnerships to work together to accomplish modernization. the last time we fixed the highway system was in the 1950's or 1960's. so there is so much stuff for us to do. we are a great nation with great capabilities, but somehow, again, we have become divided. i will end where i started, we choose a world that is united. >> that's a great way to close this out. in a true demonstration of servant leadership, they will not keep the door open for him.
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[laughter] >> i really want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. it resonates with all of our experience and it says a lot about how we want to make this country work better. and so i appreciate it. >> thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]
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